Yesterday at the TV Critics tour, British actress Joanne Froggatt introduced her new role, the first female serial killer in England named Mary Ann Cotton in PBS’ Masterpiece: Dark Angel.
Quite a drastic change from her noble Anna Bates on PBS’ Downton Abbey, which she acknowledges. “People kept saying to me what did I want to do after Downton?” I jokingly kept saying, “Oh, I don’t know. Something completely different. Play a murderer or something.”
“And then this script came along, and I just thought I’ve got to put my money where my mouth is, because someone has just handed it to me on a plate.”
How did her Downton co-stars react to her new role? “Everyone was really please for me,” the actress recalls, “because I was really excited about doing it. It was a very different challenge from playing Anna, and a script I felt incredibly passionate about”.
“Actually Kevin Doyle, who plays Mr Mosley (on Downton Abbey), his next role is also a serial killer. So me and Kevin were swapping notes on it, and starting to learn our lines for the next thing.”
